If you've ever felt that vampire pigs were a largely overlooked issue in modern society, now is your chance to break their bacony little bones using your pogo stick and some choice footwork. Skullpogo, in which your character tries to stack the best combos by pogo-stick jumping on vampiric animals, is an original concept executed under the traditional arcade framework. The powerups are outlandish and the pace is frenzied. The graphics are small, colorful and clean-- indeed, the creators would do well trying to license this game to cell phone companies. Subtle visual details within the game abound, adding a distinctly professional varnish to an already solid construction.

While many recent releases within the world of Game Maker have had a distinctly post-modern flavor, Skullpogo aims and succeeds at achieving a retro look and feel. One of the strongest ingredients it demonstrates is the sound and music. The tunes are gameboy-era reminiscent and have a sort of wild-rodeo-ride swing feel to them. The tempo increases as the game becomes more aggressive. All I'll say about the sound effects is that this is exactly how I imagined it would sound when I chain-stomped on a giant cartoon-esque bloodsucking pig.

The creators aim to increase replay value by changing the kinds of ridiculous powerups and animals that appear as you progress further into the game. Every so often the player will "level up" to reset the timer and increase the pace of the game, and this facilitates the appearance of weirder targets. Unique powerups are definitely the most appealing feature of this game. Some of them make your life harder-- in this case, however, your actions are worth more points. Risking more is the most effective way to score better. All of them are creative enough to shock you the first time you land on one. One issue for me was that the game gets so dense at a late enough stage that you can still play well without really knowing what's going on. However, there is still enough skill involved that my score has increased on each successive play. And, as noted earlier, the truly competitive scores come from well-calculated moves.

Players looking for an addictive, hectic arcade minigame shouldn't hesitate to give this one a go.

Umm... why is everyone up there giving it a 7, an 8, or a 9? I give it a 10! Skullpogo is a very wonderful game with excellent colors. It makes sense to me why it is on the spotlight list.

How do you do the high score thing? It's just amazing that this was made by game maker, a simple program. Keep up the good work, and give yourself a gold star for having one of your games become a spotlight!